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The American Prospect - articles by authorenLabor at a Crossroads: Time to Experimenthttp://prospect.org/article/labor-crossroads-time-experiment
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><em style="line-height: 20.0063037872314px;">This article is published as part of "<a href="http://prospect.org/sites/default/files/labor_conference_agenda_final_copy_0.pdf"><strong>American Labor at a Crossroads: New Thinking, New Organizing, New Strategies</strong></a>," a conference presented on January 15, co-sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute, The Sidney Hillman Foundation, and </em><span style="line-height: 20.0063037872314px;">The American Prospect</span><em style="line-height: 20.0063037872314px;">. (View agenda <a href="http://prospect.org/sites/default/files/labor_conference_agenda_final_copy_0.pdf"><strong>here</strong></a>.) Find our Labor at a Crossroads series <strong><a href="http://www.prospect.org/topic/labor">here</a></strong>.</em></p>
<p><span class="dropcap">I</span> love the breadth and gusto of the new labor organizing, which includes plenty of innovation based in <em>old </em>labor organizing as well. This mash-up of practical experiences will help produce breakthrough tactics and strategies. There is also a question of purpose—is our aim to improve working conditions, or is it to build a more powerful working class? These are related, clearly, but suggest different strategies and structures.</p>
<p>Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, is a laboratory for change. Here are three areas at the top of our list for exploration in this realm.</p>
<p><strong>Changing minds</strong></p>
<p>Pollsters call this “the frame”—but really, it’s ideology.</p>
<p>Working America talked to 1 million people last year. We’ve had about 8 million conversations with working-class moderates on their doorsteps over the last decade. When we engage them in a conversation, most people will agree that big corporations and Wall Street have too much influence over our economy and our democracy, and they will support us on any given fight. When it comes to elections, most are convinced to vote for our endorsed candidates.</p>
<p>As the bottom has fallen out of the middle class, more people identify as working class, and examples of income inequality resonate, even if the phrase “income inequality” itself is abstract to our members. But we also see that with the decline in union membership, few people have a direct experience with collective power. People need to believe that their interests are different from those of big banks and corporations, and that the power of working people together can effectively challenge those interests. Without that “frame”—what we used to call “class consciousness”<span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px; line-height: 20.0063037872314px;">—</span>we endlessly gain support on particular issues or candidates only to start all over again with the next fight or election.</p>
<p>How else do you explain the millions of voters in 2014 who voted for important progressive initiatives while electing right-wing candidates? The voters who supported raising the minimum wage in Illinois also elected Bruce Rauner governor, perhaps the most anti-worker candidate of the cycle; the Anchorage electorate killed the anti-worker/anti-union ballot measure AO 37, but also defeated working-family friendly Sen. Mark Begich. We moved every challenging group of voters by big margins through face-to-face conversations—white non-college men, gun owners, even Romney voters—but that wasn’t enough to prevail in a wave election. We need the cumulative effect of changed consciousness.</p>
<p>Elections are only one measure of the conflicting sensibilities of the people we talk to. <span class="pullquote">How do we build strong ties with members who may be united by class but with whom we want to talk about race?</span> Or supporters who are united around gender, or marriage racial equality, but aren’t there on class? Hard conversations have to rest on a shared vision of how our economy, society and democracy work.</p>
<p>Over the next few years, we’re concentrating on how every contact, communication, action and engagement with members can permanently change the way they look at the world. As Shantel Walker, a Fast Food Forward activist, said at the recent AFL-CIO Summit on Raising Wages, “I want everyone in America to fall in love with the bigger picture.”</p>
<p><strong>Structure and scale</strong></p>
<p>Years ago, when I worked with 9to5, the working women’s organization (and arguably one of the first alt-labor formations), we used to say that we need to “take off our organizational girdle”—that is, be open-minded, not doctrinaire, about what forms organizing should take. Today, we’d probably say Spanx, not girdle, but otherwise the sentiment is still right. And that is exactly what everyone from a local workers’ center to the Ironworkers Associates to OUR Walmart is doing.</p>
<p>The first question organizers confront of course, is, what will workers join? The second is, what organizational forms can leverage power? Collective bargaining at the enterprise level worked well in the mid-20th century, but high turnover and the casualization of work make that model the exception, not the rule. Welcome, precariat.</p>
<p>The CIO shaped the power of industrial organizing, and when I was a young organizer in SEIU we aimed to organize “wall to wall,” to include all the skilled and unskilled workers who shared a common employer, rather than emulating the craft or trade union model that focused on a “guild of the skilled.” But new organizing models may need to borrow more from <em>trade</em> unions rather than industrial organizing. The trades and entertainment unions pulled together people who, today, would be considered independent contractors. What does that suggest for organizing the cosmetologists in a state or by extension, all of the retail workers in a mall? </p>
<p>Another model is leveraging public policy locally to raise standards and build organization, LAANE in Los Angeles offering the most impressive example. How do we expand that model and include membership for those workers who otherwise are not in a collective bargaining union?</p>
<p>To succeed, these new structures need to deliver, and that depends in part on scale. New organizing will be propelled by committed activists, but will have to be sustained by huge numbers of members and supporters. And that gets me to our last focus.</p>
<p><strong>Dues and democracy</strong></p>
<p>Our independent labor movement has been sustained by dues-paying members with a vote in their unions. The institutions that unions devised to sustain themselves once they’d won contracts—automatic dues deductions from paychecks, fees for those non-members who benefit from union contracts, and automatic renewal of membership status through “maintenance of membership clauses”—created financial stability, but are now in political peril.</p>
<p>We need to find new ways for members to support their organizations consistently that don’t depend on winning contracts with increasingly union-averse employers. Many unions are going back to voluntary dues collection—getting their members or fee payers invested and engaged, and that’s a good thing.</p>
<p>Organizations that depend on outside funding, such as workers’ centers, often have impressive leadership and democratic decision-making, and make huge advances for their members. But an organization has to be financially supported by its members to be independent. Ultimately, you are accountable to your stakeholders.</p>
<p>Some argue that self-sufficiency may be essential, but a democratic structure isn’t necessary and may be counterproductive—that democratic institutions are naturally conservative, protecting their members’ interests above the greater good.</p>
<p>If so, we have to struggle with that. AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka tells the story of how the United Mine Workers of America was the first U.S. union to oppose apartheid. These largely rural white workers found common ground with black workers in South Africa through a shared economic analysis. The UMWA leadership changed the minds of their members, overcoming cultural bias. We’ll have to do the same.</p>
<p>It’s an exciting time. Unions, alt-labor and groups of workers are pioneering new visions concurrently. We share an unwavering commitment to workers and an experimental approach, with some healthy tensions. We need all these experiments, and we need them to have the room, resources and power to pave a path forward.</p>
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</div></div></div>Wed, 14 Jan 2015 17:16:52 +0000221515 at http://prospect.orgKaren NussbaumNew Organizations for Workershttp://prospect.org/article/new-organizations-workers
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><strong><em>This piece is part of the </em>Prospect'<em>s series on progressives' strategy over the next 40 years. To read the introduction, click <a href="http://prospect.org/article/strategic-plan-liberals">here</a>.</em></strong></p>
<p>Corporate domination of the media, of politics, and of the workplace has thrown American society out of whack. Labor laws no longer protect workers’ interests. We need to return to the purpose of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The point of the act, according to its preamble, is to remedy the inequality of bargaining power between employees and employers because it’s bad for the economy.</p>
<div style="width:250px;float:right;padding-left:5px;"><a href="http://prospect.org/article/strategic-plan-liberals"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/stratplanlogo.png" /></a></div>
<p>The act’s intent is every bit as germane now as it was when it was written, but the regulations are outmoded and often damaging to workers’ interests. The economy and the workforce have changed since the NLRA was enacted in 1935. For workers to regain bargaining power, we need to embrace three fundamental tenets.</p>
<p>First, a boss is a boss. Advocating for workers today is a Whac-A-Mole process in which the employers deny they’re the employers. They subcontract out their work; they hire their workers from temporary employment agencies; they distance themselves from their workers in every way possible so that they can deny any responsibility for workplace conditions and the level of wages and benefits. This makes it impossible under the current law for millions of workers to bargain with their employers or to get restitution for wrongs on the job.</p>
<p>Conversely, a worker is a worker. Today, many workers are misclassified as independent contractors or temps; others are misclassified as managers to avoid overtime laws. Many aren’t classified at all and work off the books. Take truck drivers or taxi drivers or the notorious case last summer of international students who worked as part of a “cultural exchange” on an assembly line for a subcontractor of a subcontractor for Hershey’s chocolates.</p>
<p> Finally, all these workers, however they’re classified, need to have freedom of association in all its forms, present and yet to be imagined. Why are we bound by a law that says the only way to have a voice on the job is to have a majority of the workers in your workplace vote for a union in the face of daunting management hostility? That’s not a standard for workplace representation in any other industrialized nation. Why shouldn’t workers be able to form small groups in their workplaces or citywide associations, say, of retail workers? Workers should be free to set standards for their work however they can: with their employer, with their industry, through private or public authorities.</p>
<p>The current law winnows down those options to one that doesn’t work any longer. We need to make it easier to join traditional unions as the strongest form of workplace power. We need to let worker power take its natural form, whatever that may be. We need to be flexible and open-minded about the forms that will build worker power. And we have to invest in what ultimately will have to be self-sustaining organizations of working people.</p>
<p>The AFL-CIO is making that kind of investment in Working America, which it founded nine years ago to conduct door-to-door organizing in working-class neighborhoods on issues and elections. Our canvass organizers quickly discovered a huge receptivity to the notion that corporate control had run amok. Two-thirds of the people we talk to end up joining Working America, many take action on issues, and most vote for our endorsed candidates. Now we’re taking the next step and beginning to build organizations that members can take into their workplaces.</p>
<p>We’ll soon be setting up an online organizing toolbox to help people make changes at work—whether it’s having their employer offer Mountain Dew in their office soda machine or winning higher pay for themselves and their co-workers. Our job is to give people tools that enable them to stir things up.</p>
<p>Some of these new workplace activists will go on to organize with a traditional union. And some will pioneer the new forms that will expand the definition of what it means to be in the labor movement, including funding their organization through dues in the absence of workplace deductions.</p>
<p>Unions are already expanding their reach into new forms. Wal-Mart workers are organizing with the help of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, not for majority representation but as a minority voice, staging walkouts around the country with thrilling effect. Working America is cooperating with a number of unions to create expansion projects as well. For example, we just launched Reel Working America in conjunction with the New Mexico union of film technicians and stagehands, IATSE Local 480. We’re building a home for people in the film industry who don’t have a union—production assistants, screen extras, and others. They now can have a foothold in an organization and an attachment to the labor movement even if they’re not in a collective-bargaining relationship with a studio. They’re workers in the industry, and a worker is a worker, just as a boss is a boss.</p>
<h4>Read the other pieces in this series:</h4>
<div class="item-list">
<ul><li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/powells-diagnosis%E2%80%94and-ours">Powell's Diagnosis—And Ours</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 28, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/retilting-playing-field">Retilting the Playing Field</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">John Podesta </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 28, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/build-independent-political-organization-not-quite-party">Build an Independent Political Organization (But Not Quite a Party)</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Daniel Cantor and Anthony Thigpenn </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 28, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/who%E2%80%99s-going-pay-it">Who's Going to Pay for It?</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Simon Greer </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 28, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/train-young-oganizers">Train Young Organizers</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Nelini Stamp </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/create-million-public-service-jobs">Create a Million Public-Service Jobs</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Heather McGhee </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/movement-futurism">Movement Futurism</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Ai-Jen Poo </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/make-voting-mandatory-and-filibusters-extinct">Make Voting Mandatory and Filibusters Extinct</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Thomas Mann </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/elect-more-women">Elect More Women</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">JAN SCHAKOWSKY </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/reclaim-courts">Reclaim the Courts</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">TRIP VAN NOPPEN </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/new-pledge-principles">A New Pledge of Principles</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">STEPHEN HEINTZ </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/recruit-next-generation-donors">Recruit the Next Generation of Donors</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">ROBERT MCKAY </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/new-organizations-workers">New Organizations for Workers</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Karen Nussbaum </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/six-tasks-progressives">Six Tasks for Progressives</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">Celinda Lake </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
<li class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first" style="margin-bottom:20px;">
<h3><a href="https://prospect.org/article/fight-universal-voter-registration">Fight for Universal Voter Registration</a></h3>
<p class="post-author">MICHAEL KIESCHNICK </p>
<p class="post-date">Nov 29, 2012</p>
</li>
</ul></div>
</div></div></div>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:36:18 +0000216069 at http://prospect.orgKaren Nussbaum